Paper delivered at LINQ/EFQUEL Conference in Rethymnon, Crete on 8 May 2014

1. Dr.Alan Bruce. ULS, Ireland
Katerina Riviou, EllinogermanikiAgogi,Greece
LINQ/EFQUEL:Crete, 8 May 2014

2.  Future of European educational systems rests on
skills, knowledge and attitudes of teachers
 Move from largely curriculum centered process to
competence is not easy
 Standards, outcomes and measures drive curricula
 Do these alone meet labor market needs or needs in
a transformed socio-political universe?

3.  Students learn more effectively in
technologically enhanced environments
 Technology is a tool not simply a solution
 Technology supports quality – it informs and
is informed by best practice
 Move towards designing courses as
interdisciplinary explorations
 Learners learn within a community

4.  Education informed by critical and reflective
perspectives
 Competence building upon standards
 Role of quality – conceptual issues
 Alternative to curriculum driven systems
 Move from time based system to learning
based system
 All age groups included

5.  Technological resources and access
 Engaging families and communities
 Moving from teacher to student focus
 Relationship to labor market
 Designing for difference: inclusion and UDL
 The role of adult education and lifelong
learning
 Addressing the impact of change

6.  End of permanent jobs for life
 Casualization and degraded conditions
 Part-time and fragmented work
 Developing careers not jobs
 Adaptability
 Flexibility
 High entry level requirements
 Market focus
 Ethics and social responsibility
 Customer service quality and planning

7.  Decreasing workers’ share in national income
in all countries
 Labor productivity (up 85% since 1980) not
reflected in wages (up 35%)
 Declining social mobility
 Rising income inequality reflected in
declining equality of opportunity
 Urbanization and rural decline
 Mass unemployment and crisis

8.  Patterns of constant change
 Permanent migration mobility
 Outsourcing
 Flexible structures and modalities
 Obsolescence of job norms
 Knowledge economy
 Ecological pressures
 End of certainty

9.  Innovation supporting learning
 Innovation supporting work
 Re-evaluation of traditional methods and structures
 Changing needs
 Analyzing and responding to impact of globalization
 Change without changing – innovation with
precedents
 Facing new realities – using evidence

10.  Persistence and increase in inequality
 Permanent hopelessness of excluded
 Embedded violence
 Internal underclass
 Social polarization
 Stripping away rights
 Invisibility, ethnic difference and the retreat
to denial

11.  Commodification of knowledge
 Impact on education systems (Freire, Illich,
Field)
 Impact on work (Braverman, Haraszti, Davis)
 Impact on community - alienation and
anomie
 From community to networking
 Knowledge and learning now centrally linked
as product and process dimensions

12.  Conservative
 Strict
 Hierarchic
 Inflexible
 Memorization and recall focus
 Examination-driven
 Resistant to application of new
technologies

13.  Pupil/learner centered
 Competence driven
 Community focused
 Technologically enhanced
 International engagement focus
 Learning process (application modes)
 Individual value (humanistic approach)

14.  Disruptive classroom behaviors
 Absenteeism
 Early school-leaving
 Teacher burnout
 Migration, integration and sustainability
 Literacy, numeracy, basic skills
 Languages
 Quality and governance
DG EAC (2008) European Education andTraining Systems in the Second Decennium of the Lisbon
Strategy, NESSE and ENEE.

15. “Competence means the proven ability to use
knowledge, skills and personal, social and/or
methodological abilities, in work or study
situations and in professional and personal
development.”
European Commission, 2008

16.  They are multifunctional
 They are transversal across all fields
 They refer to a higher order of mental complexity,
including active, reflective and responsible
approaches to life
 They are multidimensional, incorporating know-
how, analytical, critical, creative and
communication skills – as well as common sense

17.  Meaningful contexts
 Multidisciplinary approach
 Constructive learning
 Cooperative, interactive learning
 Discovery learning
 Reflective learning
 Personal learning

18. The Competency Framework for Teachers
articulates the complex nature of teaching by
describing three professional elements of
teachers’ work:
 Skills
 Knowledge
 Attitudes/values
These elements work in an interrelated way as
they are put into practice in classrooms.

21. The European Reference Framework of Key
Competences was defined in the
Recommendation on key competences for
lifelong learning adopted by the Council and
the European Parliament in December 2006
as a result of five years of work by experts and
government representation collaborating
within the Open Method of Coordination.

22. • Communication in the mother tongue
• Communication in foreign languages
• Mathematical competence and basic
competences in science and technology
• Digital competence
• Learning to learn
• Social and civic competences
• Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship
• Cultural awareness and expression

23.  Digital competence
 Learning to learn
 Social and civic competences
 Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship
 Cultural awareness and expression.
The five competences mentioned here are transversal.
They are cross curricular and pervasive.
They also support acquisition of all key competencies

24.  To help teachers acquire and reinforce such skills and knowledge so
that they can design cross-curricular activities that support the key
competencies acquisition (KCA) of their students.
 To support teachers in the process of assessing competences with
the use of e-portfolios.
 To raise the awareness of the administrative staff of schools in order
to support teachers in bridging the gap between policy and practice
(e.g. curricular reforms in order to support cross-curricular competence
driven activities).
 Also aimed at teachers’ collaboration with colleagues, in order
ultimately to become innovation leaders in their institutions.

27. TRANSIt

28.  Schooling and education at a crossroads: both
structure and process
 Labor market and education increasingly
connected
 Planetary focus is on mobility, skills and
innovation
 Huge impact of increasing inequality of access
and of resources
 Crisis as the norm
 Addressing assessment
 Performance, standards, quality, reproducibility
and added value at the heart of competence

29. Dr. Alan Bruce
abruce@ulsystems.com
Katerina Riviou
kriviou@ea.gr
TRANSIt Project
www.transit-project.eu